Dialogue with difference: Meta-representations in political dialogue and their role in constructing the ‘other’

IF 1.8 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL

Journal of Social and Political Psychology Pub Date : 2022-06-22 DOI:10.5964/jspp.7529

S. Obradović, H. Draper

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引用次数: 3

Abstract

When faced with the aftermath of a divisive political event, how do citizens make sense of the political opinions of those who voted differently to them? Drawing on the Social Representations Approach (SRA) and its emphasis on communication as a medium through which meaning making occurs, we utilize dialogical analysis of focus group data (N = 36) collected after the UK’s referendum on leaving the EU. We focus on how voters engage with the perspective of the other in an intragroup dialogue setting. In doing so, this paper aims to explore the role of meta-representations, or ‘what we think other people think’, in contexts of contested political issues. We show the value of considering how meta-representations function to delegitimize different political views and vote choices, and by implication serve an important role in socially representing the ‘other’, constructing and reproducing intergroup boundaries. This process is achieved through drawing on semantic barriers, communicative tools that play a crucial role in safeguarding one’s own beliefs from the threat of alterity.

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差异对话:政治对话中的元表征及其在建构“他者”中的作用

当面临分裂性政治事件的后果时，公民如何理解那些与他们投票不同的人的政治观点？借鉴社会代表法（SRA）及其对沟通作为意义创造媒介的强调，我们对英国脱欧公投后收集的焦点群体数据（N=36）进行了对话分析。我们关注的是选民如何在群体内部对话环境中与他人的观点互动。在这样做的过程中，本文旨在探索元表征，或“我们认为其他人的想法”，在有争议的政治问题中的作用。我们展示了考虑元表征如何使不同的政治观点和投票选择失去合法性的价值，并通过暗示在社会上代表“他人”、构建和再现群体间边界方面发挥重要作用。这一过程是通过利用语义障碍来实现的，语义障碍是一种交际工具，在保护自己的信仰免受争吵威胁方面发挥着至关重要的作用。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Social and Political Psychology Social Sciences-Sociology and Political Science

CiteScore

2.70

自引率

4.80%

发文量

审稿时长

40 weeks

期刊介绍： The Journal of Social and Political Psychology (JSPP) is a peer-reviewed open-access journal (without author fees), published online. It publishes articles at the intersection of social and political psychology that substantially advance the understanding of social problems, their reduction, and the promotion of social justice. It also welcomes work that focuses on socio-political issues from related fields of psychology (e.g., peace psychology, community psychology, cultural psychology, environmental psychology, media psychology, economic psychology) and encourages submissions with interdisciplinary perspectives. JSPP is comprehensive and integrative in its approach. It publishes high-quality work from different epistemological, methodological, theoretical, and cultural perspectives and from different regions across the globe. It provides a forum for innovation, questioning of assumptions, and controversy and debate. JSPP aims to give creative impetuses for academic scholarship and for applications in education, policymaking, professional practice, and advocacy and social action. It intends to transcend the methodological and meta-theoretical divisions and paradigm clashes that characterize the field of social and political psychology, and to counterbalance the current overreliance on the hypothetico-deductive model of science, quantitative methodology, and individualistic explanations by also publishing work following alternative traditions (e.g., qualitative and mixed-methods research, participatory action research, critical psychology, social representations, narrative, and discursive approaches). Because it is published online, JSPP can avoid a bias against research that requires more space to be presented adequately.